Odidiva - The African Queen, has been invited to the prestigious New York City art fair, Performa'17. Also known as Odidi Mfenyana this Cape Town based Performance Artist, named among the world's top live singing Drag Performers by the book Around The World In 80 Drag Queens, will be supporting, friend and colleague, Zanele Muholi, "Africa's most powerful female artist" - Art Review magazine.
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| Odidiva & Zanele Muholi, September 2017 @Tarka for The Comeback |
In a trailblazing career starting in 2001 as the showstopper in award-winning South African theatre director, Brett Bailey's BIG DADA - The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin, Odidiva has taken the art of drag from the underground club counterculture to the mainstream of the arts, crossing genres, transforming African Queer culture by influencing hearts and minds.
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| Odidiva in House of the Holy Afro, Paris France 2013 |
Here is a tacit discription of Odidiva's stage persona as described by Nadine Botha for Design Indaba magazine:
Odidiva likes to brag about being the “only live act black drag queen in Cape Town”. That translates as: no lip-synching, no impersonation – everything is live, proud and personal. But what really distinguishes her is her political edge.
She likes to be compared to Evita Bezuidenhout in that regard, but Odidiva is a guerrilla fighter in comparison. She’ll have you up an’ dancing to Brenda Fassie’s Weekend Special and while you’re still pulling in your chair, punch you in the stomach with something like: “If we don’t invest in education now, we are still going to be robbed at gunpoint in 20 years time.” Which will only have you laughing even louder at her next quip about christening Jacob Zuma as “President Lovepants”.
Like Zanele Muholi, Odidiva is a LGBTI activist artist using the performing arts as a platformto inspire social cohesion as encouraged by South Africa's world leading Constitution godfathered by legendary statesman Nelson Rholihlala Mandela and spiritual icon Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu.
Now in her 16 year, Odidi Mfenyana's nom de guerre Odidiva is looking to growing and mentoring the next generation of African Queer Activist Artists with BUSHWAACKING, her self coined version of US invented Voguing/Waacking which forms the basis of Mfenyana's Master in Fine Arts thesis at AFDA on route to establishing the African Queen Queer Arts Institute.
Please tune into The Salon Bush Radio 89.5FM tonight 20h00 Wednesday 4 October 2017 for a full interview with Odidiva. Here more about her life and times and get the fierce "gees" that's bringing life to South Africa's queer arts culture.
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| BUSHWAACKING - House of Odidiva |
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